


kismet

by jelly_spine



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: ??? idk, M/M, high school rapper au, idek what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 23:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10581606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelly_spine/pseuds/jelly_spine
Summary: According to Jo Wonwoo (the kid from the Busan team who exaggerates just about everything) seeing Donghyuck in person gives you about as much luck as a dozen four-leaved clovers and a hundred horseshoes combined.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> this started out fancy, then went... somewhere  
> i'm sorry this is a mess ily

Mark hops over a crack in the pavement under the dusky yellow streetlights. The boys around him—whom he affectionately calls his ‘rapping gang’ although they hate it—chatter at a sluggish space so different from their hectic rhythm onstage one wouldn’t think they’re capable of formulating words so fast. The best rappers, claims Yoonho, are those who save their energy for rhymes.

They arrive to a small basketball field and find some kids they then usher away. The younger boys spit out curses unfitting for their infantile, braced mouths, but shut it quickly when Hongwon offers them bubble gum in exchange for kingship of the field. Once the kids are gone the group of older boys sits down on the cold ground they’ve claimed, idling instead of playing basketball like they intended.

Mark gets a text. It’s Donghyuck, asking where he is, if he’s unexpectedly found the love of his life and decided to abscond with her. ‘Why on earth would I suddenly _skedaddle_?’ he sends back, amused by his friend’s exaggeration. ‘We’re just going to play a bit of basketball with the guys, then I’ll head back home.’

It takes a few minutes before Donghyuck answers, ‘I’m coming along.’ When asked if he’s allowed, he replies, ‘No.’ Another minute passes, then, ‘I’ll find a way.’ A winking face at the end.

Mark chuckles and slides his phone into his pocket. He tugs at the elbow of Yoonho’s parka. Once his and a couple other boys’ attention is on him he informs them about his groupmate coming to join them. “What’s he like?” Jiseok inquires, curious. The others peer at Mark, equally interested.

Mark has to ponder what to say for a few seconds. “Probably unlike anyone you’ve ever met—the funny kind of wacko, you know,” he finally utters, scarcely explanatory. He feels like no words could brace anyone for the walking thunderstorm that is Lee Donghyuck.

Damn right they can’t. The boy appears some ten minutes later, kisser obscured by a cap and a face mask. Before he reaches the group Mark’s friends barely react, continuing their trivial conversation—but as soon as he’s there, gazing down at them with bright eyes, the boys spring up onto their feet, prompted by some mysterious awe. They bow like they would to their elders, the tips of their ears bright red.

Donghyuck’s a singer, all right. Someone carefully selected and trimmed for the television screen, trained to hold himself like a divinity. Someone one might not fully realise leads a life outside the spotlight like everyone else. An entity who seems entirely separate from the banal world and everyday life. Seeing him in flesh and blood, blemishes and all, standing in the lamplight on a small basketball field in the suburbia of Seoul might feel odd, unreal even. Still, Mark thinks the others are overreacting.

Donghyuck takes his (read: Mark’s) cap off, letting his freshly washed hair curl freely on his forehead and at the nape of his neck. He leaves the face mask dangling from his left ear. “Hey, I’m Donghyuck,” he introduces himself. Mark thinks he looks a bit silly. The others look ready to give away all the chewing gum in the world.

“How’d you sneak out?” Mark asks.

Donghyuck laughs and puts his cap back on, this time backwards. “I told the manager I was going to bed. Doyoung’s there to keep him out of our room if he ever tries to check if I’m really there.”

Yoonho’s the first of the other boys who dares open his mouth. “So, what do you do in your group? Sing, dance?” he asks carefully. When he crosses Donghyuck’s eyes he looks away as if burned, blood rushing up his neck.

“I sing,” Donghyuck replies. Mark remembers the day the boy first flew in from Jeju. The city must have fallen in love with him right there and then or somewhere along the way, because it’s stripped the stars in the sky of their light and given it to him. Why he has such an effect on the other boys present and the whole goddamn city, Mark wishes he knew.

Sangho musters up the courage to ask Donghyuck for a little song. The singer tries to refuse on the pretext of not having warmed his throat up but the others insist. Ultimately, he yields, and clears his throat. He sings a curt line, another, then stops when he can’t remember the lyrics anymore.

Mark thinks a few of the other guys have stopped breathing so he hurries to suggest they do what they originally set out to do. Seungwan blinks the hearts out of his pupils and hurries to fetch the basketball he brought along. He divides the others into two teams.

Even though Donghyuck doesn’t exactly excel at basketball the guys on his—and Mark’s, much to the older boy’s dismay—team praise him for even the smallest of successes. Halfway through the game he trips on his poorly tied shoelaces, landing on his hands and knees. As Mark laughs his cheeks sore the others help him up. As the faint red scratches on his palms are being assessed to Donghyuck giggles at his own misfortune, too.

Mark recalls the first time he met the other guys. No, he remembers, they weren’t nearly as dismayed by him being a singer. Something about Donghyuck renders them flustered and mystified like this, squirming and fiddling with the hems of their coats.

Maybe it’s the shampoo he uses.

 

 

 

“How do you even function around someone so bloody _gorgeous_?” Yoonho leans closer to whisper. Just a question, nothing to go with it.

The air in the hall is sweaty, stuffy. A whole bunch of teenagers wonder who’ll have to step onto the stage next. Names are called out, fortunately not Mark’s. He lets out a breath of relief, claps for those who wipe sweaty palms on uniform trousers before they trudge onto the stage and answers without looking at his friend, “What do you mean?”

Yoonho waves his hands about. “Have you not seen Donghyuck? I almost died when he breathed my way!” Interest piqued by the name none of them dare voice out very often, their teammates start listening in on the conversation.

Mark barely bites back a cry of bewilderment. This has gone far beyond nice shampoo. “You can’t be serious, dude.”

“Try me,” Yoonho replies. He meets Mark’s gaze with a steady, resolute look. Nothing to do with the turmoil in his eyes when confronted by a certain pair of gold-specked irises.

Mark sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. An ugly feeling’s been welling up inside him since Yoonho opened his mouth, like tidewater bearing all kinds of little crustaceans and shells, microscopic spasms and aches. First only licking at his toes, now up to his chest. He taps his fingers against the knee to relieve some of the pressure. He knows it’s a mistake, but chokes out anyway, “Okay, I get it. But why did you bring him up?”

“I, um.” Yoonho fiddles with his fingers. He takes a deep breath. “Is he, like, single?”

Just like that the green tide sweeps over Mark’s head. “No. I mean yes,” he replies, more defensive than he intended, then adds, preventing all further courses the conversations could take, “Why do you care, anyway?”

The others blush and look away. The performance no one on the team really paid attention to ends, they clap. A new batch of names is called out and this time Mark’s is one of them. He goes up, the tide retreating but still sloshing inside him with every step he takes. He forgets a few words, stumbles over his tongue once. Donghyuck, he tells himself. It’s all because of Donghyuck.

 

 

 

 

 

Mark returns to a quiet dorm. He takes a moment for himself in the foyer, standing in a sea of mismatched shoes which stink of sweat and rubber. The tide’s retreated. He trudges to his room, pulls on the handle to prevent the lock from clicking too loud when he opens the door.

Donghyuck’s forgotten the light on. He lies on the bed, limbs splayed out and hair a maroon halo against the pillow. His arms are still tangled in the shirt he’s pulled off in his sleep. It’s a habit of his, this removal of clothes, which hasn’t manifested itself since he was fourteen.

Mark needs a glass of water.

His Adam’s apple bobs furiously as he gulps down water from Yuta’s Osaka mug. He needs to rinse the taste of the rap he screwed up off his tongue and scrub the image of a narrow, bird-like chest off his mind. Of course, it barely works. He refills the mug three times.

Taeil appears. He has a habit too, except it doesn’t involve shedding clothes in his sleep and it’s never ceased. Every day he sleeps through the afternoon and evening, then wakes up to roam the night. He prances into the kitchen unexpectedly, laughing, “Woah there, cowboy. Slow down a bit.”

Along with a surprised gasp of air Mark breathes in some water. “Hey,” he finally chokes out when the liquid’s finally out of his windpipe. “How’re you?”

“Fine,” Taeil says. He pats the teenager on the back helpfully. “How was the recording for the show?”

Mark puts the mug into the sink. The tower of dishes wobbles dangerously. He decides he would rather not listen to Taeyong going on about how he’s the only one keeping the dorm somehow clean so he rolls up his sleeves and picks up a dish brush. “Not very good. I messed up my rap,” he says over the hiss of the running tap water.

“How come?” Taeil asks, sidling up to the other boy and picking up a rag to dry the dishes with.

“I forgot a few words and stuff,” Mark replies.

“Oh. That sucks. Anything else worth mentioning?”

Mark contemplates whether he should bring up his teammates’ interest in Donghyuck or not, but ends up doing it anyway. “The guys really like Hyuck,” he says, fishing a fork out of the cloudy water.

“That’s great,” Taeil hums. He obviously takes it as the friendly kind of liking. Casual slaps on the butt and all that jazz.

“No, no. They _like_ him,” Mark stresses. He gestures with the fork, waving it up and down for emphasis.

Taeil stops drying a plate to think, then, “Can’t blame them, really.”

“You can’t?”

Taeil gives Mark an odd look through the reflection in the window they’re both facing. “I think he’s very handsome. And charming—until he reveals his real satanic self.”

Mark laughs. “I guess.”

“You don’t think so?” Taeil still has that strange look in his pupils. The teenager’s seen him do that before, that one time Yuta claimed he hadn’t eaten the last yogurt.

“I—yeah,” Mark stutters, “I don’t know. No.”

Taeil dries the last dish. “Sure,” he says with a chuckle, laying the cloth out to dry. “You know what? I think it’s way past your bedtime.”

The drain inhales the soapy water with a gurgle. Mark suppresses a yawn and nods. He pads to his bedroom, turns the light off and changes out of his clothes in the dark with great difficulty. Once he’s arranged his limbs over his soft mattress he listens to Donghyuck’s breathing, his gentle snuffles. He makes sure to close his eyes before they get used to the darkness. He makes the sheep he counts run at an Olympic speed in hopes of falling asleep faster.

The next morning when Youngho comes to wake the teenagers up he laughs at Mark’s pyjama, which he’s put on all wrong. The boy can’t really explain he would rather have his shirt on backwards than the image of his roommate’s abdomen burned onto the insides of his eyelids.

 

 

Yoonho calls. The stupid snsd song he’s set as his ringtone slices the exhausted silence of the practice room. Donghyuck shoots Mark an amused look from his spot in the middle of the floor and sings along lazily until the other boy picks up.

Yoonho says he needs Mark to read over the newest draft of his rap, asks if it’s okay to meet in the grocery store next to the basketball field in twenty. The practice’s over, as long as the manager agrees Mark doesn’t see why not. Donghyuck somehow manages to catch the entire conversation and asks to accompany Mark.

“No,” Mark says.

“Why not?” Donghyuck whines, sitting up.

“Just,” Mark replies, a bit unsure himself. He simply doesn’t want to see Yoonho looking at Donghyuck’s face as if he had hieroglyphs on his cheekbones. “No.”

Mark calls the manager to get permission and departs without taking a shower, leaving Donghyuck alone onto the practice room’s hard floor. He takes a bus and crosses his fingers in his pocket, hoping no one recognises him in the sweaty state he’s in. He hops off the bus, trudges into the grocery store and finds Yoonho crouched in one of the aisles, contemplating what kind of milk box to take.

“Strawberry or banana?” Yoonho asks.

Mark comes to a halt next to his friend, hands in his sweatpants’ pockets. “Banana.”

Yoonho chooses the strawberry-flavoured milk. They buy instant noodles and find themselves a spot at one of the tables outside the store. Yoonho pulls a notebook filled with separate papers out of his backpack, almost knocking the piping hot noodles into Mark’s lap. He riffles through a geography essay and a dozen equations before he finds the messy draft of a rap, half of it crossed out and rewritten. He hands it over for Mark to read, sipping his strawberry milk with an expectant glint in his eyes.

Mark reads words about sun-kissed skin, identities concealed by face masks and youths given away. The previous drafts of the rap he read were more about youth in general, not about _those_ eyes and _that_ smile so radiant it’ll light future and _that_ voice wonderful enough to stop the traffic if played on the radio. “Is this about Donghyuck?” he blurts before he can stop himself.

Yoonho blushes and squirms a bit in his seat. Mark doesn’t need a verbal answer. He closes the notebook and turns to his noodles. He doesn’t manage to eat them whole, snapping them almost straight away. Bad luck for him. But who cares about superstition when there’s a typhoon inside his ribcage and an urge to erase the whole rap off the page gnawing at the edge of his conscience?

“So, is it good?” Yoonho asks tentatively, obviously aware of the irritation Mark’s trying to discharge by slurping on his noodles with even greater vigour.

The noodles seem to have done their job. Mark laughs a bit. “Yeah, the noodles are great.”

Yoonho barks out a laugh. “No, not that. I meant the rap.”

“I know, I know,” Mark chuckles. “Man, you’re whipped.”

Yoonho pulls a pen out of his bag and clicks the point out with a shy smile. “It’s maybe a bit early to say,” he mumbles, then bends over the page.

 

 

 

 

There’s no thin sliver of light under the door so Mark assumes he can prepare to go to bed without having to use Yuta’s Osaka mug. He’s just come back from a quick shower when Donghyuck utters from his bed, words a bit muffles by the duvet, “How was it?”

Mark jumps and almost bites his tongue. “I thought you were sleeping,” he whispers in the general direction of the other boy. “You aren’t allowed to scare me like that, man.”

Mark can hear Donghyuck shrugging, his bedsheets rustling. “I do what I want,” he says.

Mark shakes his head and changes quickly into his pyjamas. He collapses onto his bed, exhausted. “Yoonho rewrote his rap,” he mentions into his pillow.

Donghyuck’s sheets rustle again as he turns. He blows out a sigh, the softest kind. “Oh, really? How’d he change it?”

“The new one’s about you,” Mark says. “About how pretty you are and stuff.” As he waits for the other boy’s reaction he holds his breath. He expects and hopes to hear a snort, one of the sarcastic remarks he seems to have for every situation.

Instead, Donghyuck stays silent. Taeil’s playing the piano in the next room over, probably keeping Youngho and Jaehyun up. “I’m flattered,” Donghyuck finally hums.

Mark decides he needs Yuta’s mug after all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yoonho’s rap gets not only one but two rounds of applause. The tide’s higher than ever, licking at the ceiling of the hall. The other kids’ cheers and whoops ring in Mark’s ears. He feels like getting up and leaving, he feels like unplugging the television back at the dorm so Taeil can’t give him those looks and Donghyuck doesn’t blush any more at sappy raps. But he can’t. He forces a supportive cry out of his mouth and a smile onto his lips.

“How did it go?” Yoonho asks when he comes back to his teammates and sits down between Hongwon and Hwichan. Mark sees smudged words on his hand, _think about him_ written onto his sweaty, trembling palm.

“You did great, man,” Mark says. “Don’t you hear the crowd cheering?” Yoonho rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.

 

 

The recording ends a bit late. Everyone files out of the hall. The teenagers from the other teams give Mark funny looks as they shuffle past. Mark turns to ask his teammates about it. Donghyuck, they explain, is almost an urban legend by now, a myth of sorts. According to Jo Wonwoo (the kid from the Busan team who exaggerates just about everything) seeing him in person gives you about as much luck as a dozen four-leaved clovers and a hundred horseshoes combined.

The night sky’s dark. Mark thinks it might be because Donghyuck still has the stars’ light tucked away somewhere in his jeans’ pocket. Or something. He doesn’t know even know anymore. (He’s never really known.) Sighing, he walks past the kids huddled outside the broadcasting station, smoking. They turn away from the red glow of their cigarettes to wave at him. One of them hollers after him, “Would you mind lending your luck to us, Mark Lee?”

Mark doesn’t know which way to take the question so he pretends he didn’t catch it and hurries home. He arrives to the building the dorms are in, climbs up the stairs two steps at a time. There’s a figure in front of the door of the dorm, about to ring the doorbell. When the staircase’s door clanks shut behind Mark the figure turns around. It’s Minseok.

“Mark!” Minseok greets cheerily. He lifts a bunch of plastic bags. “I brought you guys something.”

Minseok doesn’t come by very often, but when he does he always brings enough food for an entire army. He and all the other company seniors have an odd rivalry between them: whoever manages to spoil the newcomers the most gets respect and a few extra shots at the company’s annual Halloween party.

Mark and Minseok wade through the sea of mismatched shoes in the foyer, then pad through the dorm to the kitchen. Most of the others are out, probably for practice.

“Well, that means more for us,” Minseok laughs with a shrug, setting the bags down on the counter. He takes out grease-stained box after grease-stained box filled with deep-fried chicken.

The scent of food lures Jaehyun out of his room. He trudges into the kitchen in his boxers. When he notices Minseok sitting on one of the high stools he blushes so vigorously even his bare knees turn red. Before he helps himself to some food he bows apologetically and pulls on the nearest trousers he finds.

“So, Mark,” Minseok starts, piling a few extra pieces of chicken onto Mark’s plate. “I hear you’ve been a bit strung-up lately.”

Mark bites into his own tongue in surprise. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Stylists talk,” Minseok says with a shrug.

“They’re right. He’s got _love problems_ ,” Jaehyun pipes up, prodding at Mark’s side with his elbow.

Mark leans away from the bony elbow. “I do?” he asks.

“Isn’t love supposed to be a happy thing?” Minseok asks. He looks at Mark with a knowing twinkle in his eyes, the exact replica of the scintilla in the corner of Jaehyun’s eye.

Jaehyun snickers. “Not when someone else gives special attention to the object of his affections.”

“Oh yeah, I remember someone mentioned something about that,” Minseok says. He smiles so wide Mark can see a piece of chicken stuck between his teeth. “You just have to make clear to the others that he’s yours and no one else’s.”

“I don’t know who or what you’re talking about,” Mark chokes out, but his head’s spinning with a blur of stolen starlight and hieroglyphs on cheekbones and odd sleeping habits.

“Do we really have to spell it out for you?” Jaehyun laughs. “His name starts with D.”

“Doyoung?” Mark guesses, but doesn’t believe it a bit.

“I think Jaehyun means the one Baekhyun’s very fond of,” Minseok notes with a hum. It’s the final blow. Mark can’t deny it anymore.

Mark stuffs his mouth full of chicken to give himself an excuse not to answer. Baekhyun’s never really cared about free shots or respect, but he’s always been keen on coddling his protegee. Unlike Minseok, who always brings loads of food, he brings a little something only for the boy. A song book or tea which is supposed to be good for his throat. Donghyuck, that’s his protegee’s name, and Mark knows it.

It’s always Donghyuck.

 

 

 

 

Mark wishes he had paid more attention to eating his noodles without snapping them. All the bad luck he’s gained from eating his noodles irresponsibly has come hit him on the back of his knees and forced him down to the ground—literally. Donghyuck peers down at him, head framed by the creamy white, cracked paint on the ceiling. “You okay down there?” he asks. “Nothing happened, you know.”

 After the recording that day Yoonho just sort of tagged along to the dorm. When they were standing in front of the building it was already too late to tell the other boy to go home, so Mark let him in and figured he could bear an hour or so if he managed to keep Donghyuck away from Yoonho.

At some point when they were sitting in the kitchen, going over rhymes, Yoonho excused himself to go to the toilet. Mark didn’t think much of it before some ten minutes had passed and Yoonho still wasn’t back. He got up cautiously and left the kitchen.

There were voices bleeding through the walls into the hall. Taeil playing the piano again, Sicheng watching dramas, Doyoung and Yuta having a row—but nothing from Mark and Donghyuck’s room. Mark inched to the door and pressed his ear against it. Nothing. He pushed the door open. Now, that was a lot to take in.

Donghyuck was trapped between Yoonho and the wall, his eyes closed and his face turned away. Yoonho pursed his lips in a silly manner as he brought his face closer to the other boy’s. A gargled sound rose from Mark’s throat. Yoonho sprung away. Donghyuck opened his eyes wide.

Not knowing what to do, Mark dropped down to the floor. Donghyuck promptly pushed Yoonho out of the room and told him to fetch his stuff and leave. After he slammed the door shut he strode over and has been standing over Mark since, glaringly calm and composed compared to the other boy, who’s overwhelmed by a thousand tides at the same time.

When Mark doesn’t answer Donghyck sighs, then says, “To be fair, I was the one who dragged him here.”

“Yeah?” Mark asks, throat dry and the floor hard and merciless under him.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck affirms. “I wanted to ask him something. Then he confessed and kind of tried to kiss me.”

“Do you wish he had gone through with it?” Mark inquires. He stares past Donghyuck’s head, scared to see him pronounce whatever he’s going to say.

Donghyuck looks at Mark, calculating some odd equation in his head. “Are you glad he didn’t?”

“You aren’t answering my question,” Mark accuses.

“Neither are you,” Donghyuck counters.

Mark looks away. He lies there, counting discomfort at others being so blatantly attracted to Donghyuck plus the horror which peaks in his stomach at the mere thought of Yoonho making an advance on Donghyuck. It equals jealousy, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. Minseok and Jaehyun brought it up already, but this time he can’t eat chicken and get over it.

When Donghyuck’s left Taeil appears. He has _that_ look in his eyes, and words which reflect it on his lips. “You’ve got to confront your feelings,” he says.

“But how?” Mark asks.

“Tell him,” Taeil replies, as if it’s obvious as daylight.

Mark turns onto his stomach but can still feel Taeil’s gaze boring into the back of his head. “Tell him what?” he grumbles against the floor.

“Don’t be so helpless!” Taeil snaps, then clears his throat. “Listen. You’re on your own with this. Whatever you do, don’t leave him hanging.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey, man,” Yoonho says timidly, an apologetic red on his cheeks, “I’m sorry. About that.”

Mark shakes his head with a smile. “No, don’t be.”

Yoonho throws the basketball and scores. It’s only the two of them on the field, since Hongwon has something to clear out with that Hamin guy they’re competing against and the others are doing god knows what. It’s just two young rappers against each other, no televised competition or judges or crowd.

“Donghyuck didn’t really care for me, you know,” Yoonho adds onto his previous words a few minutes later.

Mark lifts an eyebrow. “He didn’t?”

“No, he ambushed when I came out of the bathroom. And you know what he asked me?” Yoonho says. Mark gestures for him to continue. “He asked me how you responded to the rap I wrote about you. I was a bit confused, man, I didn’t know he knew about it, so—”

“Okay, okay,” Mark cuts in. “But what did you answer?”

Yoonho scores another goal. “I said you were maybe a bit annoyed by it. No offense, dude.”

“And how did he respond to that?” Mark asks. The ball he throws bounces off the metal ring.

Yoonho shrugs. “Nothing. Seemed pretty pensive, though. At that point I still thought I had some kind of chance with him.”

“And you didn’t?” Mark hums.

Yoonho stops to give the other teenager an incredulous look. “Of course not. Did you see him when you walked in on us? It was _real_ weird, if you ask me. Like he could finally see crystal clear when he saw you.”

Mark misses the basket again. He admits defeat, which means he’ll have to treat Yoonho to cup noodles. They go to the nearby grocery store and find their usual spot at the table outside. Mark makes sure to eat every noodle whole, even when the spices sting at his lips.

“What are you doing that for?” Yoonho asks, amused.

Mark accidentally bites a bunch of noodles in half. _Goddamn it._ “I need all the luck I can get,” he declares.

 

 

 

 

 

Once again Mark steps through the dorm’s door and is met by silence. He decides to get those four mugs of water to steel himself before he enters the lion’s den, but he hasn’t had the opportunity to drink more than a mug and a half when there are careful footsteps behind him.

“You sure you should be drinking that much before going to bed?” Donghyuck asks quietly, sitting on the counter.

Mark turns around. “You sure you shouldn’t be asleep right now?”

“Why do I feel like you haven’t answered any of my questions properly as of late?” Donhyuck chuckles.

“Neither have you,” Mark retorts.

Donghyuck swings his feet merrily. “If I asked you a question now would you answer?”

Mark clutches onto the mug for dear life. “Yeah, I guess.”

Donghyuck’s calculating something again. He’s like a bird perched on the marble countertop, starlight between his feathers, pondering whether to take the leap. His hands are tucked under his thighs and his ankles are crossed carefully. He opens his mouth. “Do you like me?”

Mark’s done calculating. He sets the mug down. “Yeah.”

Donghyuck’s eyes twinkle. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Mark repeats.

“Come here,” Donghyuck says. Mark complies.

They’re both grinning like fools. There are knees on either side of Mark’s waist, a nose almost bumping into his and a breath tickling at his lips. They all belong to Donghyuck. Donghyuck, who’s as beautiful as a myth, who would have shrines built and lives sacrificed in his honour if he’d been born on another millennium; Donghyuck, who’s for some godforsaken reason fallen for someone as silly and banal and unremarkable as Mark.

Mark tells Donghyuck exactly that. Donghyuck laughs. Without saying anything he lifts his hands up to Mark’s cheeks, but by doing so he knocks the Osaka mug off the counter. There’s the clink the mug against the tiled floor, a crash. Mark cringes. Donghyuck hits his head against the cupboard’s door behind him.

“Shit,” Donghyuck spits out and hops down to collect the pieces of the mug. “I really wanted to kiss you.”

Mark laughs. “I’ll get super glue.”

Thankfully only the handle was detached from the mug. As Mark holds the pieces together, waiting for the glue to dry, Donghyuck kisses him, a bit too much teeth but still perfect in the teenage sense of the word. And Mark thinks no amount of black cats running over the street and snapped noodles will overthrow the good luck Donghyuck brings him.

For once in his life that Jo Wonwoo’s understated something.


End file.
